Monthly Archives: September 2014

What do you put in your Essentials Bin?



When you are packing up for a craft show...what do you put in your Essentials Bin?

Of course you know that you will pack your goods (in my case finished pottery and woven items) your display furniture (for me it's folding tables, folding shelves, folding chairs, wooden boxes, a dressmaker dummy, ikea "valet" rack and cloths to cover the tables.) signage and a cooler of water and  snacks.  Because I never have time to grab lunch and find snacking through the day keeps the headache away.  Keeping yourself hydrated is important!  Even when the weather is cool water is important.

Oh. And of course you don't want to forget bags and wrapping for purchases.  I have been lucky the last several years.  With all of our moves I have had a TON of packing paper.  JUST this year I was in danger of running low.  But a friend moved to her new house and gifted me with ALL of her household packing paper.  Yay!

And I nearly forgot to mention painters plastic.  My shows are often under a big tent.  The condensation that gathers on the underside of the tent will drip, drip, drip!  So I always cover my work for the night with 2 or 3 $2.99 plastic sheets.  We always seem to have painting projects planned at home so they will be reused at least a few times after the shows...

My Essentials Box is the thing I pack up after day one and take to the hotel with me, while leaving my booth set up for the next day.

For me I include, the money box (of course) with my Square, for the credit card shoppers and $180 worth of change.  I'm sure that seems like a lot of cash.  But my husband is an accountant that believes in being prepared.  And you don't want to lose a sale because you can't break a $20 (or $50 or $100 for that matter!).  I will say the tides have turned and the majority of my sales are by credit card.  But I agree with Greg that I should be prepared.  (AND I have come to the rescue of fellow artists more then once when THEY were not prepared with change...)  I also bring 2 receipt books (I think positive) and extra pens and batteries for the adding machine.

Plenty of business cards.

Book for emails and or addresses for the one day mailing list.

Commission book.  I finally have realized that that slip of paper that I scrawl a commission request on is not good business smarts.  So I always enter any request in my book with all the pertinent information (request, address, deadline etc.)

Package of Wet Ones.  (We are talking porta john territory.) Antiseptic hand wash (see prior note).

Hammer, all in one tool, rope and various clips, clamps and pins (for holding down the previously mentioned plastic) and shims (in  case my tables don't sit level.)

Scissors! (As I hop up to add them right now before I forget.)

Besides this box of essentials there is usually an extra bag of last minute items....an extra pair of socks (my shows are usually in a field and morning set up can mean wet grass...so wet feet.) A roll of TP, a towel or two and a bag for garbage.

Is there something I haven't mentioned that YOU never leave home without???

Nice article on Saguaro cacti

Yes, I’ll admit it: I subscribe to house porn the Houzz newsletter. But this time there was a nicely written article about Saguaro cacti, including a mention of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Red Chairs, Blue Bench …

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Frelinghuysen Arboretum – Morristown, New Jersey

- by Joan -


Autumn At Last

Our favorite season is officially upon us!

We celebrated with a small campfire, hot cider and maple-glazed donuts, and Mad Libs, staying out until it was dark and we were too cold to stay without getting blankets.

In other words, it was perfect!

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Happy Fall, everyone! Let’s enjoy these fleeting moments while we can!


Tagged: food, Seasons

I Salute You

zeimusu_Thumbtack_note_emailHere’s a question for you:

When you write an email, do you include a salutation?

You know, the “Dear John,” or even something as simple as a person’s name at the top.

I was reading an old blog post on Linda Formicelli’s excellent Renegade Writers site the other day that was discussing whether or not to use an editor’s first name when sending a query letter.

This made me realize that, most of the time, I don’t bother starting my emails with names at all. I usually just jump right into the meat of the message.

I addressed this back in 2008, when I pointed out that a standard email has pretty much the same format as an old-school standard memo.

To:
From:
Date:
Subject:
…followed by the text of the memo.

The thing is … these days, most people don’t use old-school memos, or worry about proper formatting for almost anything.

Then, also, since email is so common, a lot of people don’t seem to pay attention to much of anything other than the body of it. (How many email “conversations” have you been copied on that ended up talking about a topic totally unrelated to the one in the Subject line because nobody was paying the least bit of attention to what it said?

Of course, there’s the option of the email signature to add complexity. If you use a standardized signature that spells out your name, your title, your business, your website, and so on, well … it seems almost silly to have the proper end of a letter format (i.e., your name) but not the beginning where you actually address the person to whom you’re writing.

Not to mention that it can seem rude jumping right into the conversation without some kind of polite start. You wouldn’t call someone and snap out “We need to change the first paragraph” the moment the phone is answered. (Or, I hope you wouldn’t.) You’d at least say hello first, or “This is Deb,” or “About that article we were talking about.” Something to get the person at the other end into the right frame of mind for what you were calling about.

All of which kind of means I’ve been doing my emails wrong all these years, huh?

What do you think? Do emails work like memos, which formally do not have salutations? Or are they more like letters, which do?

Fall Is Here …

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 Prepare to be overwhelmed by the glorious colors of the changing leaves, pumpkins everywhere (definitely at my house), the crisp air, the brilliant blues of an October sky, wearing sweaters…  etc etc.   Can you tell autumn is my favorite season :)


Hello Autumn 2014 …

Come on in and stay awhile.

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- by Joan -


Happy Fall, Y’all!

The cutest pumpkin in the patch!

At Summer’s End

We’ve definitely noticed a shift in the weather and the light over the last few weeks. It’s ever so chillier at night now, and night itself has been arriving earlier and earlier. Accordingly, our evening feedings have been getting pushed a bit earlier every day to avoid going out in the dark.

Morning chores are so much more pleasant these days; we’ve even been wearing sweatshirts or flannels out!

Even so, the garden continues to churn out summer’s leftover bounty in the form of cherry tomatoes and raspberries.

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We’re getting a nice bowl full of raspberries every day.  This is from a raspberry plant I bought two years ago at Lowe’s (basically it was a stalk at that point!). We’ve decided we’ll put another stalk in at the opposite end of the garden and let them grow towards each other.

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I’ve also been getting bucket loads of cherry tomatoes.  The craziest part is that I didn’t end up planting cherry tomatoes this year.  These are volunteers from years past.  I think the main factor in their success, though, is that these are located fairly close to the beehives.  I’ve been getting so many I’ve taken to simply freezing them whole for later use in sauces.

The big work has been the basil.  It was starting to show signs of disliking the cooler temperatures at night and I decided it was time to harvest.  I brought two big bushes worth and made pesto. I filled three Weck jars (2 half liter, one quarter liter) and got to work making pasta.

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I ended up with 283 ravioli, distributed among 12 freezer bags.  I would have broken 300, but Pippa stole about 20 off the counter when my back was turned. Jerk.

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We love pesto ravioli, and this was an exciting sight for everyone when it was all done.

I still have another basil plant to harvest, and I can’t decide if I will make more pesto ravioli or if I will simply dry it for use as a seasoning.

Decisions, decisions.

 


Tagged: food, Garden, Seasons

Autumn Preview …

Two more days and it will be autumn… my favorite season.

My creation

I enjoy everything about autumn .. the crisp air, the brilliant blue sky of October, wearing sweaters, the vivid colors of the turning leaves… but mostly I love pumpkins, those dots of orange on the landscape that make me smile :)   I like to photograph them, decorate with them and have a bit of pumpkin pie or bread from time to time.

Below are pumpkin pictures from Morning Glory Farm on MV in Oct 2012.

My creation

 Warning, this is only the beginning :)